OnlyOffice just pulled its 8-year partnership with Nextcloud, citing Euro-Office licensing violations

4 min read Original article ↗

Simon Batt

Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech.

Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics.

Summary

  • OnlyOffice says Euro-Office violated AGPLv3 by retaining branding and failing to provide attribution.
  • OnlyOffice suspends Nextcloud partnership, citing boundary breaches and recruitment attempts.
  • Euro-Office keeps distributing the fork; reconciliation with OnlyOffice seems unlikely in the near future.

It was just a few days ago that I was excited about Euro-Office's release, which positioned itself as a free and open-source alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Docs. Unfortunately, the celebrations were cut short when OnlyOffice announced that Euro-Office has used its code in violation of the AGPLv3 license.

Now, it seems the two are coming to an impasse. OnlyOffice has announced it's suspending its partnership with Nextcloud, citing not only the alleged violation but also "several signals" that tipped it off.

Proton VPN running on a Windows laptop

OnlyOffice accuses Euro-Office of violating its AGPLv3 license

Euro-Office says it wants to "liberate" OnlyOffice's code base

euro-office-header Credit: XDA / Euro-Office

This story begins with Euro-Office releasing to the public on March 30th, led by both Nextcloud and IONOS. Of course, right from the get-go, Euro-Office is using the code that OnlyOffice states belongs to the company and isn't being represented properly. However, tucked away within the Euro-Office GitHub project readme is this nugget:

Euro-Office is based on the ONLYOFFICE Open Source, an AGPL codebase. This code base is being extensively reviewed and cleaned up, with the goal of making it easy to build and contribute to. Why did we resort to a fork, rather than collaborate? Of course, forking should be a last resort. Unfortunately, open collaboration with ONLYOFFICE was not possible, for a number of reasons:

Euro-Office then lists its grievances with OnlyOffice, including claims that collaboration is "impossible or greatly discouraged," that OnlyOffice has made "controversial decisions," and a lack of transparency. In fact, the header for this section of the readme is titled "Euro-Office liberates the ONLYOFFICE code base," which shows you what Euro-Office's intent was with the code.

In response, OnlyOffice accused Euro-Office of license violations, including failure to abide by, as OnlyOffice puts it:

  • Preserving ONLYOFFICE branding in derivative works;
  • Providing proper attribution to the original technology;
  • Fully complying with open-source distribution obligations.

This seemingly did not faze Euro-Office, which continues to supply its software.

Immich on Android phone and Macbook laptop

OnlyOffice suspends its relationship with one of Euro-Office's leads, Nextcloud

It's a culmination of issues instead of one big problem

Screenshot of OnlyOffice showing a text document in SteamOS

Now, OnlyOffice has declared that it's putting its partnership with Nextcloud, one of the leads for Euro-Office, on ice. As it turns out, the partnership had been a little shaky even before Nextcloud and Ionos revealed Euro-Office. As OnlyOffice states in a blog post:

We observed repeated attempts to move beyond the agreed boundaries of cooperation, including efforts to build independent commercial offerings around our technology without proper alignment, as well as coordinated outreach targeting our employees and customers, comprising attempts to recruit our team members and influence customers’ perceptions of ONLYOFFICE in ways that raised serious concerns about fair and responsible partnership conduct.

OnlyOffice also cites "feedback from partners and customers" that claim that Nextcloud "did not correspond to transparent and professional collaboration."

Given Euro-Office's desire to 'liberate' the OnlyOffice codebase, and OnlyOffice's displeasure with Nextcloud's behavior, there's a very low chance that OnlyOffice and Nextcloud will be close partners any time soon. OnlyOffice does state it will continue supporting its connector for Nextcloud, but I can't imagine them going any further than that for a few years. We'll just have to see if Euro-Office's stance was worth the burned bridges.

Proton Mail on display